1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to pickup trucks and, more particularly, to bed covers for pickup trucks that are fuel efficient, aesthetically pleasing, and unique.
2. Related Art
A variety of devices are currently on the market for providing environmental and structural protection to a bed of a pickup truck. Some such devices include lightweight tonneau covers that are made of a canvas or vinyl type material and are stretched to engage with the truck's side rails to cover the bed. While useful, some may not consider such tonneau covers to be aesthetically pleasing, they severely limit what can be put in the bed, and they provide little in the way of security protection because they can be easily ripped or torn. To overcome the deficiencies with soft tonneau covers, manufacturers have developed had shell tonneau covers, such as flat fiberglass covers. While these overcome many of the issues with soft tonneau covers, they present issues of their own. More specifically, there is limited ability to lift open or store tall items. In addition, unlike soft tonneau covers, it is not recommended to travel in the truck with the hard cover open, which substantially limits the items that may be carried to only items that fit within the enclosed bed of the truck.
Another common device for covering the bed of a pickup truck is a bed cap. A typical bed cap has a boxy shape with four cap walls, one of which is typically a door or hatch that can be mounted on the truck's three bed walls and the tailgate. The cap walls extend upwardly to a generally flat roof to define an enclosure which extends from the floor of the bed to the roof of the cap. Such bed caps provide more structural and security protection to the bed by structurally enclosing it with a hard shell, and allow taller objects to be stored unlike tonneau covers. However, bed caps currently are very utilitarian in looks with their boxy shapes, and therefore, they are considered by some to be aesthetically unpleasing. Additionally, such bed caps are generally not aerodynamic, and thus, fitting a bed cover on a pickup truck may have a negatively impact on a truck's fuel economy.
There remains a continuing need for a structurally sound and aesthetically attractive option for covering the bed of a pickup truck that also allows for greater ability to store items than tonneau covers provide, and better fuel efficiency than traditional bed caps.